On This Day – Pete Souza: “Another snowstorm blanketed Washington for the second time in a few days. Because it was a Saturday, I hung around the White House thinking that the President might venture out in the snow with his daughters. Here they are playing in the Rose Garden in the midst of the storm.” Feb. 6, 2010

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Presidential Daily Schedule (All Times Eastern):

8:00AM: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend the National Prayer Breakfast

Sy Mukherjee: Conservatives Seize on Report To Argue Obamacare Is a Job Killer – But The Author Says They’re Wrong

On Wednesday, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Doug Elmendorf refuted the claim that the Affordable Care Act is a job killer — a misleading takeaway from his agency’s new report that is being touted by Obamacare critics. Testifying before the House Budget Committee on the CBO’s newly released economic projections for the next decade, Elmendorf addressed the report’s finding that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the labor participation rate and the total number of hours worked by an equivalent of 2 million jobs in 2017. According to Elmendorf, that statistic is being taken out of context to suggest that Obamacare will eliminate jobs.

If someone says, ‘I decided to retire or stay home and spend more time with my family and spend more time doing my hobby,’ they don’t feel bad about it — they feel good about it. And we don’t sympathize. We say congratulations.” Elmendorf also noted that the ACA is actually expected to boost the economy in the near-term by making health insurance and medical care affordable for the poorest Americans, giving them the freedom to spend money in other areas of the economy. “On balance, CBO estimates that the ACA will boost overall demand for goods and services over the next few years,” states the report.

Under questioning today before the House Budget Committee from Dem Rep. Chris Van Hollen, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf confirmed that in reality, his report suggests Obamacare will reduce unemployment: The CBO report found that Obamacare — through subsidizing health coverage – would reduce the amount of hours workers choose to work, to the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers over 10 years. This was widely spun by Republicans as a loss of 2.5 million jobs. To counter this, Van Hollen cited the report’s findings on Obamacare’s impact on labor demand, rather than supply.

On page 124, the report estimates that the ACA will “boost overall demand for goods and services over the next few years because the people who will benefit from the expansion of Medicaid and from access to the exchange subsidies are predominantly in lower-income households and thus are likely to spend a considerable fraction of their additional resources on goods and services.” This, the report says, “will in turn boost demand for labor over the next few years.” “When you boost demand for labor in this kind of economy, you actually reduce the unemployment rate, because those people who are looking for work can find more work, right?” Van Hollen asked Elmendorf. “Yes, that’s right,” Elmendorf said.

The quasi-official Twitter account for Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that the country would be adopting a universal health care system to “extend medical insurance to all Iranians.” In English at least, the new government is also adopting a nickname that would sound familiar to American ears: RouhaniCare.

A new break in the GOP’s debt-ceiling strategy emerged at a private lunch on Wednesday, where House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) encouraged his allies to consider linking a restoration of recently cut military benefits with a one-year extension of the federal government’s borrowing authority.

“He was very warm to it, seeing it as something that can get us out of this fix,” said one attendee, who like the others requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “I think this could be a way for us to get through the debt ceiling, but the speaker is going to spend the next few days taking the temperature of his members.”

Sean Sullivan: Biden To Raise Money For Alex Sink In Florida Special Election

Vice President Biden will travel to Florida next week to attend a fundraising event for Democrat Alex Sink’s campaign for Congress, Biden’s office confirmed Wednesday, marking the White House’s first direct involvement in a special election seen as harbinger of the November midterms.

Sink is running against Republican David Jolly in a Tampa-area swing district. They are competing to success long-serving Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R), whose death last year led to the special election.

After his first attempt to nominate an out African-American judge to the federal bench was blocked by Sen. Marco Rubio, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday his intent to try again. According to a release from the White House, Obama will nominate Darrin Gayles to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Gayles, who has served as a circuit court judge for Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit since 2011 and previously served as a county judge for the same circuit from 2004 to 2011, was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund for his bid for re-election in 2012. If confirmed, Gayles, much like Thomas before him, would become the first out black man in the nation’s history to serve on the federal bench.

President Barack Obama has nominated four people to serve as federal judges in Florida’s middle and southern districts. Three of those nominated Wednesday are currently circuit judges and one is an attorney in private practice. All four must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

According to a White House announcement, Obama chose Miami-Dade Circuit Judges Beth Bloom and Darrin Gayles for South Florida. Nominees for Florida’s middle district are Putnam County Circuit Judge Carlos Eduardo Mendoza and Orlando attorney Paul Byron.

Anyone who has ever picked up a tabloid knows full well how the 1 percent flouts the laws that bind the rest of us. One night in 2004, 16-year-old Eric Bradlee Miller got drunk on a bottle of vodka, stole a pickup truck at a convenience store, then plowed into a car, killing the driver. Almost ten years later, Ethan Couch, also 16, packed several friends into his father’s pickup, stole two cases of beer from a Walmart, and proceeded to scream down a local thoroughfare until he collided with a disabled vehicle, killing its driver and three passersby. Miller’s grandfather, with whom he lived, had wanted to hire a private lawyer but couldn’t afford the expense, and so the court appointed one instead. The lawyer advised Miller to plead not guilty and take the case to trial, where he was convicted of murder and handed a 20-year sentence.

Couch’s parents hired two prominent local defense attorneys who advised him to plead guilty and wallow in contrition before the judge. Most famously, they enlisted a psychologist to testify that Couch suffered from an obscure malady known as “affluenza,” in which wealthy parents render their children blameless by failing to discipline them. Prosecutors had asked for 20 years; the judge—the same one who sentenced Miller—set Couch free. The only catch was that the teenager would have to spend part of his probation in a California rehab facility with a half-million-dollar annual tab. The only way to bring about the ideal of equal protection under the law is to boost spending on lawyers for the poor and middle class, and to prevent the affluent from spending freely. We must, in effect, socialize the legal profession.

Conservative Republicans on Wednesday ruled out any immigration legislation in the House this year, insisting that the GOP should wait until next year when the party might also control the Senate. several of the conservatives were adamant that the House should do nothing on the issue this year, a midterm election year when the GOP is angling to gain six seats in the Senate and seize majority control. Democrats currently have a 55-45 advantage but are defending more seats, including ones in Republican-leaning states.

“I think it’s a mistake for us to have an internal battle in the Republican Party this year about immigration reform,” Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, told reporters at a gathering of conservatives. “I think when we take back the Senate in 2014 one of the first things we should do next year after we do certain economic issues, I think we should address the immigration issue.” Labrador’s comments were noteworthy as he was one of eight House members working on bipartisan immigration legislation last year. He later abandoned the negotiations.

The Senate last June passed a bipartisan bill that would tighten border security, provide enforcement measures and offer a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. The measure has stalled in the House where Speaker John Boehner and other leaders have rejected a comprehensive approach in favor of a bill-by-bill process.

Luke Harding: How Snowden Went From Loyal NSA Contractor To Whistleblower

At the time, the figure who most closely embodied Snowden’s rightwing views was Ron Paul, the most famous exponent of US libertarianism. Snowden supported Paul’s 2008 bid for the US presidency. He was also impressed with the Republican candidate John McCain. He wasn’t an Obama supporter as such, but he didn’t object to him, either. Once Obama became president, Snowden came to dislike him intensely. He criticised the White House’s attempts to ban assault weapons. He was unimpressed by affirmative action. Another topic made him even angrier. The Snowden of 2009 inveighed against government officials who leaked classified information to newspapers – the worst crime conceivable, in Snowden’s apoplectic view. In January of that year, the New York Times published a report on a secret Israeli plan to attack Iran. The Times said its story was based on 15 months’ worth of interviews with current and former US officials, European and Israeli officials, other experts and international nuclear inspectors.

TheTrueHOOHA’s response, published by Ars Technica, is revealing. In a long conversation with another user, he wrote the following messages: “WTF NYTIMES. Are they TRYING to start a war?” “They’re reporting classified shit” “moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this? those people should be shot in the balls” “that shit is classified for a reason” “it’s not because ‘oh we hope our citizens don’t find out’ its because ‘this shit won’t work if iran knows what we’re doing'” For the rest of the journey, Greenwald read the latest cache, mesmerised. Sleep was impossible: “I didn’t take my eyes off the screen for a second. The adrenaline was so extreme.” From time to time Poitras would come up from her seat in the rear and grin at Greenwald. “We would just cackle and giggle like schoolchildren. We were screaming and hugging and dancing with each other up and down,” he says. Their celebrations woke up some of their neighbours; they didn’t care.

The report estimated that — thanks to an increase in insurance coverage under the act and the availability of subsidies to help pay the premiums — many workers who felt obliged to stay in a job that provided health benefits would now be able to leave those jobs or choose to work fewer hours than they otherwise would have. In other words, the report is about the choices workers can make when they are no longer tethered to an employer because of health benefits. The cumulative effect on the labor supply is the equivalent of 2.5 million fewer full-time workers by 2024. Some workers may have had a pre-existing condition and will now be able to leave work because insurers must accept all applicants without regard to health status and charge premiums unrelated to health status.

Some may have felt they needed to keep working to pay for health insurance, but now new government subsidies will help pay premiums, making it more possible for them to leave their jobs. The report clearly stated that health reform would not produce an increase in unemployment (workers unable to find jobs) or underemployment (part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week). It also found “no compelling evidence” that, as of now, part-time employment has increased as a result of the reform law, a frequent claim of critics.

99ts, what a brilliant idea! Even though watching tv in the morning gives me a headache, I would take a couple of aspirin and then eagerly tune into the Chips/NW show every day. Of course, we already do that each morning when we come here, although I get what you mean about reaching larger numbers.

Be so nice to have a Morning Show that wasn’t full of RW lies – I find it so weird that the media believed every lie GWB and Co said – until it was so very obvious they had no choice but admit they were duped. Doing exactly the same thing with Christie – although this one looks to be falling apart somewhat quicker.

NW, thank you, thank you for the chart on judicial appointments under President Obama. This is terrific information and all in one place. The union membership/middle class income chart is also a winner. Democrats and union leaders throughout the country should have this on hand for every meeting with voters. Americans have been cowed and manipulated by plutocrats into rejecting unions and participating in their own decline.
We have to fight back.

WASHINGTON — One of the best arguments for health insurance reform is that our traditional employer-based system often locked people into jobs they wanted to leave but couldn’t because they feared they wouldn’t be able to get affordable coverage elsewhere.
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The reaction to the CBO study is an example of how willfully stupid — there’s no other word — the debate over Obamacare has become. Opponents don’t look to a painstaking analysis for enlightenment. They twist its findings and turn them into dishonest slogans. Too often, the media go along by highlighting the study’s political impact rather than focusing on what it actually says. My bet is that our citizens are smarter than this. They will ignore the noise and judge Obamacare by how it works.

I have a couple of friends who are long term unemployed – they have to jump hoops – apply for jobs – meet up with advisors each week – BUT – they receive minimal payments every fortnight so they can pay some rent and eat. It is not a lifestyle many would want – but they are not starving, they have – usually a room in a share house – they have health care & food.

Surely the biggest issue at the moment is how are people surviving when the GOP refuses to give them even minimal support in their lives.

Good grief, 99ts. I clicked on the link and saw me facing a sociopath. Next time, please give me a warning. I didn’t read anything below the face; I was so disturbed. These GOP creatures are something else.

See, dear, sweet, dumb, easily cowed Americans, employer-provided health insurance was a kind of indentured servitude. You had to stay with your job, no matter what, in order to not drown in medical debt or to take care of a preexisting condition that switching jobs and insurance might not cover. How many people do you know who have said, “I’d find another job/quit/start my own business if it wasn’t for health insurance”? How many disabled, sick, or close-to-retirement people do you know who should stop working but haven’t because they would be shit out of luck on health care? How many parents would like to stay home with their kids, which was once a conservative goal?

The report said that the roughly 2.5 million full-time jobs given up due to a cumulative reduction of hours by employees who choose to work less or not at all because they got on Medicaid or subsidized insurance. There’s a good chance that that would free up jobs for people who are seeking them. That’s just…fucking humane, isn’t it?

And that’s gotta drive the capitalists and their congressional lackeys crazy. All of a sudden, a whole lot of workers have choices. Holy fucknuts, that means that the relationship between capital and labor has shifted, ever so little, in favor of labor. What the hell? Haven’t we set this whole thing up to dick over workers every chance we can? How the fuck did that slip through? No wonder the right went to DefCon Fast and Furious yesterday (it’s just below DefCon Benghazi).

Df, crudely put by Rude Pundit, but absolutely true. When you shift the relationship between labor and capital even a little the equilibrium becomes unbalanced and who knows what great things newly empowered people might do.

Morning, jackie:) Yes, crudely put but right on the merits:) This is a game changer IN FAVOR OF WORKERS….that’s why the RW is all freaked out! Can’t have workers be in control of their lives now, can we?

Where did anyone get the wildly insulting idea that Americans don’t work enough?

By LOLGOP

—————————————

Obamacare only offers subsidies and subsidized coverage to people who WORK. It encourages people on Medicaid to earn more and keep their coverage.

What the law disincentivizes is OVERWORK.

Americans work harder than anyone in the industrialized world. We work 1,800 hours annually, 400 more hours than the Norwegians and 330 more hours than the French. For this we get less vacations and the most expensive health care system in the world with far from the best results.

Good morning, TOD. I am confused about this Prayer Breakfast. is this the same one that Ben Carson spoke at last year? This speaker is total opposite. Do they switch each year for the speaker before the CIC and use someone from each “side” every other year? Just wondering.

Yes, it is the same Prayer Breakfast, an anomaly in a country that professes the separation of church and state affairs. Anyway, it is a good thing because it brings together all sorts of people, particularly overseas leaders. In that respect, I support it whole heartedly. That Ben Carlson, as good surgeon he may be, is an aspiring teabagger who truly believed that his vile rant could attract national support for a political run. He is another Allen West minus the hair style.

Fortunately, speakers at the Prayer Breakfast change every year. If not we would have been subjected to listen to the odd doctor attacking again and again every aspect of the ACA. Let the doctor do what he does best, whatever he does now, and let us enjoy both our President and the ACA.

As for Louie Goehmert, I’ll give him a pass this morning as my President magnanimously did when he stated that Goehmert was a good guy and very gracious every time he met him, excluding when he was on TV, adding that he didn’t watch TV. This rat could say so many offensive things that would upset me this morning if I think about them. No. I want to be a good Christian in honor of this national prayer breakfast.

I didn’t think I was wrong but I know there’s another ‘prayer thing’ sometime in the spring–National Day of Prayer maybe??? Overall in the big scheme of things, I support this and having the CIC attend and speak. Like in many things, there’s pros and cons. The thing that I find so negative and sickening is the ALWAYS hypocrisy of the right because their actions do not back up the words they use…..all the talk about their prayer sessions, Bible Study, etc. but they do not live those teachings of Christ in how they treat people–from the President to the American people.

You are so right. I simply hope that they would have conscience this morning and pass the unemployment insurance extension. I think the GOP and all RW must have a different Bible, one that substitute the word people for corporations.

A private company’s decision to part ways with a proven carcinogen and the cause of one out of every five deaths in the United States annually may seem non-controversial — and in fact fits within the free market ethos that many Fox hosts purport to champion — but Fox News has a long history of manufacturing conflict on almost any topic if it can be used to attack President Obama.

In 2009, Fox News declared itself “the voice of the opposition” to Obama, and in every year since the network has illustrated it will go to any length to do just that.

G’morning NW, Chips, TOD, lurkers, and congrats UT on #1. :) I see that you were especially early with today’s fabulous R & S! Thanks for all the informative articles, graphics, tweets – what a feast! :)

Again, I wish President Obama could stop this tradition without causing a huge brouhaha. I share the opinion of those who believe that no U.S. president belongs at this event sponsored by the intolerant, radical and extreme evangelical network called The Family, which seeks to use governments to promote Christianity around the world before the arrival of the antichrist, which many of the members have accused PBO of being. CREW—-Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington—-has urged the president and members of congress to not attend. They said they’re not saying that The Family can’t have their prayer breakfast, but are saying that no U.S. president should be lending legitimacy to this bunch of religious fanatics by attending.

This is the nonsense we’re going to have to put up with if Hilary ever becomes the Dem nominee (and wins) – at least four years of constant media distractions, very little meaningful legislation or policies enacted, and a probably Republican Presidency at the end of her term.

i don’t think she can win in a national election. she failed miserably in 2008 given all her huge built-in advantages. if she gets the democratic nomination, i really feel, with the media’s help, the republican will become the next president. scary thought.

of course, we have midterms later this year that are more important at the moment though…

We don’t know for sure if Hillary will run, at least the words haven’t come out of her mouth yet. But if she runs I think she can win a national election. She lost in 2008 because there was a special unknown candidate who took the world by storm. Well there isn’t another Barack Obama, so in my opinion Hillary can win if she runs.

I am with 4morefor44. She will not win a National election. and she didn’t lose because of an unknown. She lost because she appealed to the lowest denominator just to get votes and she ran an incompetent campaign. She opened the gates that others (GOP) are now skipping through as it relates to the lack of respect towards POTUS.

Love FLOTUS’ dress. Makes me think of Spring, which seems today seems like a long ago memory. It’s perfect–no obvious Spring colors, but the flowers do fill your heart with the longing for blossoms. Those of us eking out this endless winter are going to be so overcome with Spring yearning soon that we’ll be keening and wailing at our windows, like deprived and hungry sheep.

Hillary Clinton appeared with Mayor Bill deBlasio at a school where sitting around a table with children sized chairs the discussion concerned Pre-K ed and financing with a tax on incomes over $500,000.

Hillary (1% DLC star and Wal-mart Board member) has either had some sort of conversion or this is a cynical attempt to infiltrate the rising Progressive tide. My hero BdB is clearly on board with whatever the plan is. SMH

Exactly HF, I had never watched the National Prayer breakfast before PBO. On top of that, before January 20, 2009 I could count on one hand the number of times I looked at the whitehouse.gov website. But since then whitehouse.gov has been my homepage.

I have been a Clay Aiken fan from the start. I am an American Idol watcher having seen every episode of every season. Besides an excellent singer Clay taught Special Ed and started a nonprofit to help disadvantaged kids. I used to watch Trump’s Apprentice show until he started the nonsense with PBO. Now there is no way I would watch his show. I did see Clay on a Celebrity Apprentice season. He was trying to earn money for his charity and his leadership skills were impressive. I think he is genuine.

Seems like Murray cherry-picked and left out the context of what Aiken said (no surprise there). I didn’t see him on MSNBC last night, but from what I read on Twitter, people were pleased with what he had to say. I’m sure even PBO himself would say in a given context that “There are things I would change about the health-care law” Any one of us here could say something like this. That is true of any legislation – even laws that we like.

My mother is working on the Sink campaign. She’s donated and canvassed with my sister.
Apparently, the word in this area is that obamacare is radioactive.
They have somehow mangled obamacare to make sink run away from it.
Not kidding!
Still, the election is a tossup next month! So, we shall see…
Just thought you wanted a grass roots update on Sink election ! :)